1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a telecommunication system and, more particularly, to a caller name and identification announcement communication system having a caller screening option. The present caller name communication system relates to voice and data networks and provides the called party with the ability to screen his or her telephone calls before accepting any call. Also, the present caller name communication system includes a feature server or access controller that permits the subscriber, if desired, to screen callers or pass-through the caller's telephone call by-passing the screen caller service. Furthermore, the caller may be prompted to enter his or her personal identification number (PIN), or speech recognition technology to detect the callers voice signature, and to immediately by-pass the caller screening option and, thus, have immediate direct connection. This ability is presently achieved by adding the feature server to an existing network, without any modification to any element or component of the network or a subscriber's equipment. It is anticipated that this feature server will, in the future, be an integral part of the switch means in the telecommunication system taking full advantage of intelligent networks (IN) and/or advanced intelligent networks (AIN) or caller line identity (CLI). Thus, the present invention relates to a telecommunication system that includes a caller name and identification announcement and screen caller features and provides a multitude of delivery and screen caller services not now available on an integrated basis.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A variety of telephone or telecommunication services have been available in this and other countries to individual subscribers on a per service basis. That is to say, a typical telephone company will offer a service, such as, for example, call forwarding, that enables a subscriber to be at a different location from his or her regular home or office and still be able to receive the incoming call. However, call forwarding conventionally requires the subscriber to notify the central or other suitable office that calls will be taken at the call forwarded number. Further, there has not, heretofore, been any provision for the combination of the voice announcement of the caller party name and the calling line identification, as well as the number of other delivery, screen caller and by-pass options available in the present system.
Specifically, the wireless and wireline telecommunications network comprises offices through which telephone calls are routed. Each office is owned by a telephone company that participates in the network. Any subscriber connected to these offices can call another subscriber and can receive calls from another subscriber. Each time a call is initiated, it will be routed to the called party. A ring signal at the called party's telephone will indicate to the called party that a call is pending. The called party will off-hook his or her handset to accept the call. As is known, off-hook is defined as a detection that the telephone handset is being lifted to release the cradle or the acceptance of the call by pushing a certain key, such as, the send button of a cellular telephone, or by flipping the mouthpiece of the telephone.
Although today there are some provisions to deliver the caller line identity (CLI), which is commonly known as automatic number identification (ANI), to the called party prior to his or her acceptance of the call, this technique requires the telephone equipment of the called party to have certain, special features. The CLI is generally the ISDN number of the calling party (with possible additional information, i.e. sub-address) which may be provided by the network or partly by the calling party, while the ANI is a more general terminology in referring to the calling party in different protocols with different formats. It should be noted that the terms CLI and ANI are used interchangably in this application. In addition, some of the components of the telecommunications network in the United States and other countries do not support delivery of the CLI. The caller line identity (CLI) means the information carried from the originator or caller's telephone switch, if applicable, identifying the telephone number of the calling telephone. (It should be noted that certain countries and states presently allow the users to disable the delivery of this number to the end users by certain arrangements with the local telephone companies).
U.S. Pat. No. 4,696,028 to S. J. Morganstein, et al., which issued on Sep. 22, 1987, titled: PBX Intercept And Caller Interactive Attendant Bypass System, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,975,941 also to S. J. Morganstein, et al., which issued on Dec. 4, 1990, titled: Call Processor For Facilitating Call Completions, which is a continuation of the application that resulted in U.S. Pat. No. 4,696,028, are directed to an intercept system for integrating the personalized services of switchboard attendants with on-premises PBX switching systems with the capabilities of the intercept system that allows the calling party to complete the call to the on-premises switching system provided extension numbers of the called parties are known. The system intercepts the incoming call and establishes a bidirectional communication path between the caller and the intercept system. A digital announcement circuit transmits an instructional message to the caller requesting the caller to dial the desired extension number and a DTMF receiver collects the dialed extension number digits.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,329 to T. D. O'Brien, which issued on Jan. 9, 1990, titled: Call Deferral System For Telephones is directed to call deferral system in which a call can be deferred for a selected period of time that can be either the time at which the user desires for the call deferral to end or the period during which it is to be in effect. This system includes DTMF decoder and a speech synthesizer.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,058,152 to M. Solomon, et al., which issued on Oct. 15, 1991, titled: Anonymous Interactive Telephone System Having Direct Connect Feature, is directed to a method and apparatus for establishing telephone communications between anonymous service subscribers and responding callers over public telephone lines. The system permits mutually anonymous parties to conduct telecommunications with each other, and without the need to divulge the telephone number of either party. The system can enable a subscribing caller to place calls to persons having caller identification telephone equipment capable of identifying the telephone numbers of the callers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,222,125 to C. W. Creswell, et al., which issued on Jun. 22, 1993, titled: System For Providing Personalized Telephone Calling Features, is directed to a common adjunct switch that is integrated into a telecommunications network that allows a subscriber to control the manner in which a telephone call is received. In particular, when a call identified by a service telephone number is received by the adjunct, the adjunct advances the call to the associated service subscriber's home telephone station set if the caller is not the service subscriber. If the caller is the service subscriber, the adjunct transmits an announcement providing a menu of personalized calling services that the subscriber may program to customize the manner in which the subscriber receives the call from the adjunct. Such personalized services include call forwarding and call screening. Also, the system permits the subscriber to place via the adjunct a telephone call to either the subscriber's home telephone station set or another telephone station set.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,243,643 to S. Sattar, et al., which issued on Sep. 7, 1993, titled: Voice Processing System With Configurable Caller Interfaces, is directed to a voice mailing processing system that communicates to callers through a digital computer common-platform. This system provides for flexible and user configurable caller interfaces.
Clearly, the problems of the prior art are not solved by ally one of these patents. Solutions to these problems are, however, solved by the present system in which a network based feature server intercepts an incoming call for a called subscriber and prompts the caller to either speak his or her name, or speak or punch a pin number. If the pin number is entered or the spoken name is recognized by the speech recognition technology, then the called party's profile will be checked to determine whether there is authorization. If there is authorization, the call will be directly routed. In the case where the called party speaks his or her name, the spoken name is then recorded and a new call is initiated to the called party. There is also anticipated a further option where telefax and modem calls are screened by listening to the line. If it is a telefax call, it will be directed to a selected telefax line, whereas if it is a modem call, it will be directed to a selected modem line. If it is neither, service will simply continue.
Once the called party answers, the recorded name is played back and the digits of the caller's line will be transmitted, provided CLI is present and CLI delivery to the called party is enabled. The called party can accept the call by staying on the line or pushing a certain key, or can redirect the call to other numbers as follows. The voice menu provides several options anyone of which can be followed by dialing or speaking the digits or speaking the name of the redirected telephone (e.g. home, office, gym, etc.) or redirect it to a preselected default number preprogrammed by the subscriber (e.g. voice mail system) by hanging up. During this period, the caller will be given a special tone or voice announcement or music as an indication that the system is tracking the called party.
The present system is a network component or network component adjunct that provides extensive features to the network or to the adjunct node. It can add new network services without altering the basic functionality of the existing network components or elements, such as, for example, switches. Thus, the present invention circumvents (a) the need of special capabilities on the called party or calling party equipment, (b) capability of the telecommunications network to transport the CLI, and (c) the legal issues surrounding the delivery of the CLI without the calling party's permission because it uses, for the most part, voice transport and voice store and retrieval capabilities. This system is also superior to the caller line identity (CLI) delivery because CLI only indicates the telephone number the call is initiated from, while the present system delivers both the originating telephone number whenever available, and the spoken name of the caller. In addition, the present system can be connected to any of the various nodes, such as end offices, access tandem, tandem, toll offices, mobile switching centers (MSC), key telephones or PBX's or customer premises switches and other network nodes capable of transporting or switching voice and data. Alternatively, the feature server can be built into the nodes defined above or into the voice mail (VM) or interactive voice response (IVR) available from other parties. Furthermore, the feature server can take advantage of the IN/AIN capabilities of the end of offices and control them to switch the call to interactive voice response or voice mail, which are generically known as intelligent peripheral (IP), or other telephone numbers using adjunct or service control point (SCP) interfaces specified in IN/AIN specifications.